Aeolia
by Eilean Donan
Summary: Captain Vesuvius Targonis is not a likely hero, and he's got his work cut out in a new, wild land of opportunity...and war. Whose side is he on? And can he remain true to himself? Snow-white, steampunked and fantasised. Here be dragons! Please R&R :
1. Chapter 1

_Well here we come on the run _  
_Our coal fires are burning_  
_Here we come fife and drum_  
_Propellers in the dawn_  
_Here we come on the run_  
_Our coal fires are burning_  
_Here we come fife and drum_  
_Under the radar we crept on_

_...Abney Park 'Under the Radar'_

* * *

**A Dubious Promotion**

Captain Vesuvius Targonis tied off the knot in his Navy cravat and studied himself in the mirror. What the hell the damned Naval officers saw in him he didn't know, but they evidently saw _something,_ because they'd summoned him to an interview. The card had said _invited_, and _promotion,_ and Vesuvius checked his calendar, hysterical laughter bubbling into his throat from a chest cold and fast siezing up with panic.

It was not April 1st. Nor was it any other day on which practical jokes were not only acceptable, but mandatory, such as Canned Frog Day, or Pantaloon Pantry Day. The origins of those, he suspected, were the Airforce, and he had never taken part in them. Anyone would think the Airforce didn't need the Navy, the way they carried on.

'Twenty-to-ten, Cap'n,' said a cheerful voice at his elbow. He glanced down.

'Thank you, Billy,' he said. 'Hand me my eye-glass and I'll be on my way then.'

'Aye, Cap'n.'

'And whilst I'm gone, Billy, perhaps you could see to my laundry? A pastime preferable to the one you usually indulge in, I'm sure you'll agree.'

Billy's hand froze, halfway to the seat of his pants. He dropped it again. 'Aye, Cap'n,' he said, his tone sullen. Vesuvius rounded on him, one slender dark brow rising almost to his hairline in annoyance.

'Your hands, Billy, will be nowhere but in a tub of hot suds! Am I understood?'

'Aye, Cap'n!'

'Wish me luck, Billy,' he said grimly, adjusting the cravat yet again and wishing it was all over, whatever _it_ was. He had a feeling luck wasn't going to come into it.

* * *

But that, Vesuvius reflected, was a past he couldn't quite lay any rightful claim to. Perhaps, he thought, there was another Captain Targonis out there, in another world, and he'd stumbled on that man's life quite by accident and without invitation, a serious social gaffe if ever there was one. Had that man stumbled upon his life in return?

'Navy, hah!' he muttered as he dangled his torso over the bulwark of his ship. An Airforce ship. Not a Naval one.

Not that Genevieve was an unsightly cow like some of them were. She was old, it was true, but despite having the bulk of one of the Leviathan airships built more than thirty years ago and now decommissioned, she posessed a kind of lethargic grace that was really quite endearing. And she was built of copper, mainly, not tin. She looked _warm_. Above him, two huge propellors whirred a deep drone in harmony with the higher-pitched whine of the tail-copters.

He took out his compass.

North-north-east. That was his bearing. His destination lay farther from his home than he'd ever travelled, and he didn't like it, not when he was travelling by air.

'A promotion, hah!' he snapped at a seagull who'd landed on the bulwark. The bird fixed him with one beady eye, and crapped on the deck. Vesuvius fingered his raygun. 'A _transfer_, and to the _Airforce!_ Piss off.'

The book hadn't been any bloody help either. Whoever had decided that writing about Aeolia was a good idea had also decided they didn't need to actually know anything about that land, and so the book was full of drawings of dragons and maps that mostly just said _here be dragons,_ and speculated about mountains full of gold and dragons. There was something about some shape-shifting nomads, but apart from their name, there wasn't much information.

'If there are indeed dragons, I'll eat my hat,' he said. A horrible thought occurred to him. 'What if the _yechaman_ can turn themselves into dragons? Billy! Bring me wine, immediately.'

Billy appeared at his elbow like an oil slick gone septic. Vesuvius' lips twisted. 'Very quick, Billy, and you are to be commended for it, but you forgot something. I asked for wine.'

'Aye, Cap'n. But we ain't got none,' said Billy. 'We got licker though, Airforce rations, Cap'n.'

'Airforce rations? Are they...is it _rum_, Billy?'

'Dunt know, Cap'n. I ain't tried it.'

'Bring it here, then.' Any drink was better than no drink, though at ten thousand feet it might not be the best idea. He was willing to risk it, however. There were worse things than being sick at ten thousand feet.

There was Aeolia.

And the _yechaman_.


	2. Chapter 2  Adrift in the Aether

_Captain Robert took his men_  
_And flew to Prague and back again_  
_Some fell off, some dropped dead_  
_And some put bullets through their head_

_...Abney Park 'The Ballad of Captain Robert'_

* * *

**Adrift in the Aether**

_There it is again. That noise._

Vesuvius raised his head. He'd been poring over the badly-drawn map of Aeolia, trying to stall the inevitable landing, and despite his determination not to take any notice, the persistant creaking had levered itself into his brain and lodged there.

He rubbed his forehead irritably. Whatever it was, he could hardly ignore it at ten thousand feet. Genevieve was old. A rattling old wreck, some men less polite than himself might say. _She's seen better days_. He sighed and went up on deck.

Above him was nothing but an expanse of frosty aether. Below him too. Genevieve hung suspended in mist and cloud like a precious artefact coddled in cotton, her main propellors silent, her bulk held aloft only by the tail-spins. The lazy clack-clack of her pennants was the only sound to break the eerie silence. Vesuvius frowned. No creaking after all.

'Billy!'

'Aye Cap'n?'

'Do you hear anything unusual?'

'I ain't sure, Cap'n. I ain't never flown before neither.'

_As I suspected_. 'Call the crew to me,' he said aloud. 'I hear creaking, and I don't like it. It's not healthy. It may be time to take her down.'

'Aye Cap'n. But the crew, Cap'n...they're...'

'_Yes_, Billy?'

'Er...asleep, Cap'n.'

'_Asleep_?' Vesuvius stared at his first mate, incredulity widening his eyes. His Naval crew never slept! At least, not all at once. The high scream of a raptor rent the quiet, and he caught sight of the bird circling the ship. He stiffened.

'Billy,' he said, 'have you ever seen a bird that big before?'

'I cain't see no bird, Cap'n,' said Billy cheerfully. Nothing bothered him. Vesuvius sometimes lay awake at night, trying to think of something that would bother Billy. A pointless pastime, he knew. Billy was too stupid to be afraid.

Billy grinned at him. 'Shall I wake the crew, Cap'n?'

'By all means, and let them know I shan't take it personally - _this time_ - if they are here within five minutes.'

He caught sight of the bird again, his blood freezing in his veins. _No bird, not a real one. Yechaman_? Surely not, when they had been ten thousand feet above the land and wreathed in cloud besides. Nothing else should be up here.

The cloud cleared halfway through his speech to his sullen and resentful crew, and all words failed him.

'Aeolia, sir,' said Allan Cambridge, the bo'sun, with a malicious smile. 'Closer than we thought, ain't we?'

Vesuvius swallowed the bile that had leaped into his throat at the sight that greeted him as he looked over the side of the ship. They weren't ten thousand feet up. They'd dropped. Now, Genevieve hovered like a sick airborne whale a mere thousand feet above ground. Maybe less. He gave the orders for the sounding-line to be dropped over Genevieve's sides.

Allan Cambridge cleared his throat. 'Captain, with respect, we shouldn't stay here. The _yechaman_ probably know we're here, and we're vulnerable, out here on the plain like this. We should head for the mountains and beach her up in a valley or summat.'

'See to it,' murmured Vesuvius absently, drawing up the line and recording the measurements on his fathogram. Although Genevieve was an Airship and not an ocean-going vessel, she was still a ship and most of the instruments she had were familiar to him. The fathogram was his own; a thing of pride to him, with its copper cogs vying for space among the newer steel sprockets, topped off with a delicately-etched face and a handsome case of polished rosewood.

He looked up as Genevieve's main propellors whirred into life, and he snapped the case shut and went to the Captain's cabin.

_Time to...land._


	3. Chapter 3  Land Ahoy

'Hoooooold! _Hoooold,_ blast your eyes, you scurvy scum!' Allan Cambridge hauled on the lever and choked as Genevieve rewarded his rough treatment with a faceful of scalding steam. 'Bring her down easy! One dent and you're all confined to the bilges!_ Blast_ your eyes!' Genevieve groaned and creaked, almost on the valley floor having dropped like a lead balloon thanks to the yahoo attitude her crew had shown in bringing her in to land. They were used to newer ships, ships that responded to touch of lever and whir of cog with an easy grace. Genevieve jerked and rattled, and the levers had to be yanked all the way before she'd respond, and then she did so with a vengeance.

Captain Vesuvius clung, grey-faced and shuddering, to the ship's bulwark, afraid he'd go over, and determined to be able to see if he should. He didn't care how many dents Genevieve took, it was the dents he himself thought himself likely to take that concerned him. He took his silk kerchief from Billy's damp hand and wiped his face with it.

'Nearly there, Cap'n,' said Cambridge cheerfully as he turned the huge wheel. 'She lumbers like a drugged whale, but she's good, she's good.'

'Drink, Billy,' rasped Vesuvius feebly. 'Get me a damned drink!'

'Aye Cap'n. What of?'

'Rum!' Vesuvius squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again as Genevieve finally touched down on the valley floor, with an ominous scraping as her caulks hit bare rock. 'And hurry up.'

'No bloody _dents_, you shower of bastards!' howled Allan Cambridge. 'You filthy bilge rats! I'll...'

'Billy, if doesn't stop peppering his every utterance with insults filched from pirates, I will drop him over the side as soon as we get to twenty thousand feet again. Go and tell him.'

Billy slid off towards the bo'sun, and Vesuvius thanked the gods that he had several seconds of peace in which to take a drink and steady his nerves. It was time to rally his wits and address his crew. _Orders,_ he thought. _What orders? What is it that I'm supposed to do, now that I'm here?_ He looked about. There didn't seem a lot to see. On all sides, there were mountains. Bare, rocky mountains, and an expanse of scrub and tundra in between. And more rock.

He looked to the sky. That was a small improvement, since the sun was setting in a fine display of liquid gold and fire and amethyst, but was otherwise was as devoid of remarkable features as the land was. Were there stars, this far North? He supposed so, yet not one could be seen in the twi-lit sky.

There was, however, the bird he'd seen before. Circling high above the copper Airship, it seemed larger than ever, and was homing in on them.

Alright. Whoever you are, I'm ready for you! He took his watch from his pocket. Ten-to-ten. Darkness would have fallen by such a time in his own land. Here, he could happily have read by the light still remaining. He straightened his cravat and put up his goggles, ready to address the crew. Genevieve's valves had settled, and save for a despondent puff of steam still issuing from the main engine pistons, she'd fallen silent and peaceful. The crew looked at him expectantly. He looked back, trying to remember the name of each of them, from bo'sun to cook to cabin-boy. He managed most of them, and resolved to find out the rest when he had a chance. For now, they were _the crew_, and needed orders.

He took his map out from under his waistcoat and unrolled it. There wasn't much on it, just a hazy coastline and some jagged-looking mountains, but it was enough. If one expected one's men to set off into uncharted territory, it helped to have a map.

He flipped open his compass lid and held it up. 'We're fifty miles south-west of North Point,' he said. 'According to this map, the main mountain ranges lie due east of here. If we travel at a rate of twenty miles every day, we should reach the farthest point north of those mountains in a seven-night.'

_Utter gibberish_, he rebuked himself. Still, they didn't know that. And even if they did, there was nothing they could do except obey orders.

'More like ten days, actually. Who drew your map? There's nothing on it.'

Vesuvius froze. _Who, or what, is behind me?_ He turned slowly, his heart in his mouth and his sweat cooling to ice as it trickled silkily down his body.


End file.
